Changing class booked in EZ air.

[fawnie]

Hi All ,

Wie were thinking of changing the class for 2 of our flights booked through EZ Air. We have 2 that are around 8 hours and were hoping to upgrade those very long flights. They are with British Airways. I chatted with Princess and they cannot help me . I tried to upgrade with British Air online and that did not work. It doesnt make sense to me that you book through Princess you pay Princess but they cant change the class for the flight from economy?  Any ideas ?

[irishgirl]

Just rebook through EZ Air.  I just rebooked my flights to London because the price went down over $300.  Just go into your account, go to travel, then when you’re on the page with your flights, go to manage your flights.

[fawnie]

it wont seem to let me change the class, i can do the seats etc but not the class

[fawnie]

not to be stupid ,but I guess I kinda am  with this... how do you know if the cost went down?

[dickinson]

Go to travel. Then click manage my flights.  I think there is a button that says change flights.  Click that.  The screen that comes up will be like you are starting anew and there will be a spot to change the default economy to whatever class you want.  Understand that it is like you are starting from scratch looking for flights.  After you pick flights it will ask you if you still want to change etc before you have to confirm.

[SCX22]

EZair doesn't have contracted rates with all airlines on all flights in all booking classes. 

 

In your case EZair might not have a contracted business class rate with BA on your specific flights.  Having flown BA business pre-pandemic, their business class fares are really high if you have to pay out of pocket and not use milage.  Not saying you can't afford, but it might be why EZair doesn't have contracted business class rates on your flight route.

 

You can re fare your flight in business class, but not on the exact same flights or airline.  Almost all of the contracted business class fares with EZair are with US airlines (United, Delta, American), sometimes Lufthansa pops up, but BA is rare.  Be careful because some of the flights will show codeshare flight numbers of a foreign airline but are actually operated by a US airlines.

 

If you want to keep your flights with BA, the alternative would be to ask for a paid upgrade at check-in.  

[paradiselivin1]

We had issues with this on EZAir flights where we could only get economy. Thought we could then go directly to the airline (United) to upgrade to economy + on a 15 hour flight. They wouldn't allow any changes as they were "bucket" flights purchased by EZAir at a discount. We learned a hard lesson and won't make that mistake again.

[shirazcruiser]

An easy way to find out the cost of a current flight is to do a search and pull up your sailing date, click on "Cruise Details" then "Flight Quotes" so you don't interfere with your current booking.  I check the cost of my flight everyday this way.  

[milolii]

Although it is somewhat easy to upgrade on many US airlines, this is not the case with BA.  BA also tacks on that LHR fuel surcharge which appears higher than others.   Try looking for another flight perhaps as suggested above. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by milolii

[Coral]

I helped my sister with this last year. We had to rebook the flights to change to Business Class. We couldn't just upgrade. This was on United though.

[kiwimum]

You will need to rebook to change your cabin class.    Pre-Covid I attempted to do similar,  from Premium Economy on BA to Business Class, no luck.   Cancelled original flights and rebooked. 
On our August cruise out of Southampton,  BA changed departure time by 4 minutes and it did not meet Princess time requirement.   Instead of non-stop we were rerouted thru Philadelphia, not going to happen.  Changed for a second time, same price thru DFW better connection.   Today I attempted to change our return flight from LHR to SAN to following day fare increased $3k pp.   Happy with flying thru DFW.   
Good Luck.

[fawnie]

21 hours ago, SCX22 said:

EZair doesn't have contracted rates with all airlines on all flights in all booking classes. 

 

In your case EZair might not have a contracted business class rate with BA on your specific flights.  Having flown BA business pre-pandemic, their business class fares are really high if you have to pay out of pocket and not use milage.  Not saying you can't afford, but it might be why EZair doesn't have contracted business class rates on your flight route.

 

You can re fare your flight in business class, but not on the exact same flights or airline.  Almost all of the contracted business class fares with EZair are with US airlines (United, Delta, American), sometimes Lufthansa pops up, but BA is rare.  Be careful because some of the flights will show codeshare flight numbers of a foreign airline but are actually operated by a US airlines.

 

If you want to keep your flights with BA, the alternative would be to ask for a paid upgrade at check-in.  

Thank you , Our TA and we have been trying to fix this, Princess says to call BA and BA says to ask Princess. All the run around with lots and lots of being on hold in between. After talking again last night with our TA other than cancelling and rebooking ( with no guarantee of the same flight ) she said to try at check in . I cant believe it is an issue that cannot be fixed prior to that point.   Thank you alll for your suggestions. I guess this comes under the heading of lessons learned .

[shirazcruiser]

3 hours ago, fawnie said:

Thank you , Our TA and we have been trying to fix this, Princess says to call BA and BA says to ask Princess. All the run around with lots and lots of being on hold in between. After talking again last night with our TA other than cancelling and rebooking ( with no guarantee of the same flight ) she said to try at check in . I cant believe it is an issue that cannot be fixed prior to that point.   Thank you alll for your suggestions. I guess this comes under the heading of lessons learned .

Do a mock booking and see if the flight is available for your sailing. 

[Familycruzer11]

7 hours ago, fawnie said:

Thank you , Our TA and we have been trying to fix this, Princess says to call BA and BA says to ask Princess. All the run around with lots and lots of being on hold in between. After talking again last night with our TA other than cancelling and rebooking ( with no guarantee of the same flight ) she said to try at check in . I cant believe it is an issue that cannot be fixed prior to that point.   Thank you alll for your suggestions. I guess this comes under the heading of lessons learned .

Highly unlikely they can help you at the airport because of the 'group' booking price.  If you are concerned, you can look at other flights to book before canceling this one, otherwise, if you are okay to keep the class you are in, don't get your hopes to high at the airport.

[Shelly97060]

If you are still in the period where you can make changes without penalty (+45 days) then you can go into manage flights and change the flights.  You will basically search for new flights ( which may or may not be the ones you currently have). When you prepare the search select the fare class you want ( premium economy for example),  pick the new flights in the class you want and if you are ok with the new price complete the transaction. 

if you in the penalty phase ( -45 days) then look on your travel summary to see if your air has been ticketed ( if ticketed there will be an actual ticket number next to your air details).  If the air has been ticketed then contact the airline to find out if you can purchase an upgrade.  Some airlines will not let you purchase advance seating or pay for upgrades until the air is actually ticketed, so I always recommend waiting until the ticket has been issued.

[Steelers36]

On 3/14/2023 at 3:32 PM, fawnie said:

it wont seem to let me change the class, i can do the seats etc but not the class

You have to re-book to a new flight.

[Steelers36]

9 hours ago, fawnie said:

Thank you , Our TA and we have been trying to fix this, Princess says to call BA and BA says to ask Princess. All the run around with lots and lots of being on hold in between. After talking again last night with our TA other than cancelling and rebooking ( with no guarantee of the same flight ) she said to try at check in . I cant believe it is an issue that cannot be fixed prior to that point.   Thank you all for your suggestions. I guess this comes under the heading of lessons learned .

You have not mentioned when you are travelling. As one or two others mentioned, have you been ticketed or not?  I don't understand what TA would be trying to do, as you need to access EZ-Air through Cruise Personalizer. Trying at check-in with a deep-discount ticket is not often going to work due to high frequent flyers who will have access over you. If the airline isn't offering an upgrade path on their website, I wouldn't count on it at all.  Besides, how much do you think they will charge on the day of flying?  How close is the business section to sold out (this is pretty much always possible to know since seat selection is generally free when buying a ticket, so seats will be allocated when sold. 

 

If you aren't ticketed, why aren't you just shopping for new tickets?  I don't see where Princess would be of help here.  I think we may be missing some facts about your situation, but I also think it is possible you don't fully understand EZ-Air.  Follow suggestions in this thread as to how to use EZ-Air.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Steelers36

[fawnie]

we are traveling at the end of May. I only wanted to upgrade from economy to premium economy. I understand that I may need to rebook but we are afraid that we wont get the flight we need. I will attempt to do that tho given the advice here. Thank you again for your understanding and advice

[jagoffee]

8 hours ago, fawnie said:

we are traveling at the end of May. I only wanted to upgrade from economy to premium economy. I understand that I may need to rebook but we are afraid that we wont get the flight we need. I will attempt to do that tho given the advice here. Thank you again for your understanding and advice

Let us know what you find.  As long as the flights with the class you want are available you shoukd be able to book it.  Of course the price will be different.

 

Good luck.

[CeCe_]

On 3/14/2023 at 12:32 PM, fawnie said:

it wont seem to let me change the class, i can do the seats etc but not the class

 

It could be that your booking is locked.  We had similar situation.  EZ Air can make the changes for you.  They might put you on hold for a long time because they need to call up different department for unlocking before they can make the changes.

[milolii]

Your ticketed fare may not be eligible for an upgrade and that may be the issue. I am thinking this could be the case here.  Some fares aren’t.  BA  is not an US airline and the rules are different.  It sounds like the agents are trying to figure out how to help you and perhaps the issue is the fare can’t be upgraded.  This may be due to the discounted fare with EZ air.  
 

Lets us know how it works out for you. 

[fawnie]

Thank you all for your caring advice;-)   I tried to  cancel and rebook through Princess only to find that our cruise  ( May 20 2023 for the Mediterranean) is sold out so I cant even rebook anything.So if I cancel with EZ air and have to rebook it would be all on my own and our fairs would be much much higher. My TA has spoken to EZ air and the only option that is given is for us to cancel and rebook and there is no guarantee that we will be able to get a flight at all through them, They "cannot confirm until we cancel that there will be any seats at all.  So at this time although it seems like such an wonderful thing to "go up a class" for our very long ,long flights , I guess we are going to feel grateful that we are going at all 😉. I really thought it would be an easy fix but I  was wrong. I mean the plane is going anyway??? are there seats in premium economy or not?? Anyway , thank you for your help, and all your caring advice. 

[fawnie]

I did go into manage my booking on Princess and although I can change my flight through them the cost is about double for economy at this point even without going up a class.  Lessons we learn in life  😉

[jagoffee]

9 hours ago, fawnie said:

I did go into manage my booking on Princess and although I can change my flight through them the cost is about double for economy at this point even without going up a class.  Lessons we learn in life  😉

Not surprising. 

[Steelers36]

9 hours ago, fawnie said:

Thank you all for your caring advice;-)   I tried to  cancel and rebook through Princess only to find that our cruise  ( May 20 2023 for the Mediterranean) is sold out so I cant even rebook anything.So if I cancel with EZ air and have to rebook it would be all on my own and our fairs would be much much higher. My TA has spoken to EZ air and the only option that is given is for us to cancel and rebook and there is no guarantee that we will be able to get a flight at all through them, They "cannot confirm until we cancel that there will be any seats at all.  So at this time although it seems like such an wonderful thing to "go up a class" for our very long ,long flights , I guess we are going to feel grateful that we are going at all 😉. I really thought it would be an easy fix but I  was wrong. I mean the plane is going anyway??? are there seats in premium economy or not?? Anyway , thank you for your help, and all your caring advice. 

It looks like you finally realized per the post below that you had no need to cancel and re-book the cruise in order to change the flight option.  It sounds like you were either totally misguided by Princess rep, or they didn't understand exactly what it was you wanted to do.

 

9 hours ago, fawnie said:

I did go into manage my booking on Princess and although I can change my flight through them the cost is about double for economy at this point even without going up a class.  Lessons we learn in life  😉

This is along the lines of what you were advised.  Login to Cruise Personalizer.  Go to the Flights section and you can shop for new flights - including a different fare class.  You will see availability and costs.  On the final page, you either accept the changes or keep what you have.

 

At such a late date, it is not surprising at all to find the airfare costing a lot more.  You probably could have booked the higher class way back when for same price economy is now.